BEYOND the Traditional, into the Limitless

By Lynn Monty

Arista Alanis

Depth, emotion, and freedom are just some of the words that emerging artist Rachel Moore uses to describe the “powerfully passionate” art emanating from women at work today. The words wonderfully characterize the body of work to be found this summer in Stowe at the Helen Day Art Center (HDAC) in the group exhibit “Women’s Work: No Boundaries.”

For many of us, we hear the expression “women’s work” in our mind as a male voice snorting derisively that it’s beneath him to be associated with such labor. HDAC has gleefully appropriated the term, playing ironically with the turn of phrase.

The eight artists included create pieces as individual as their opinions about the nature of the exhibit and its gendered title. Indeed, it was at the urging of one of the artists that the title for the exhibit expand beyond “Women’s Work” to symbolically push the limits by adding “No Boundaries,” thereby emphasizing infinite possibility rather than limitations.

Such is the power of words, and to further comment on the historic degradation of women and their accomplishments, the exhibit will also include space devoted to the visual culture of women from the early nineteenth century. Without access to a profession in the fine arts, many women’s creativity surfaced in their sewing, quilting, embroidery, and weaving. These forms were not valued by the art establishment, yet many contemporary artists now acknowledge their roots in the groundwork laid by these predecessors. Explains curator Marie LaPre’Grabon: “Women’s work has emerged into something more. It is positive. Now we have a chance to look at women’s work in a whole new light. Today we have a new insight as to what women’s work is.”

With this show, eight women of different ages and ideas have been joined together – emerging artists next to established artists, calling attention to the particular characteristics of career stages. The exhibition features a variety of media: oil paintings, ceramic and glass sculpture, lithographs, and works in fabric and thread.

The show’s organizers hope to challenge the understanding of how traditional art materials can be used in unconventional modes, as well as the notion of “women’s work” in our culture and in the art world itself.

Helen Day’s main gallery will highlight the work of Arista Alanis, Ashley James and Rachel Moore, chosen by the curator for the high quality of their work as well as their abilities to push the boundaries of their chosen media.

A ceramic sculptor for fifteen years, Ashley James creates figurative yet abstract human images. Primarily exhibiting in New York City for the past ten years, she is excited to be included in this Vermont exhibit because Stowe is her hometown.

Regarding the show’s title James says, “We don’t find many women working ‘blue collar.’ What we see is delicate. A great example is Agnes Martin or Eve Hesse. The work of these artists is delicate, yet dominates their field. Work, whether it is labor or art takes years of training using the materials at hand. Once you know the craft, the real task is to find out how you perceive the world and how you want to make that relevant to people. It is about what you have to say with what you can build.”

James adds that it is interesting to place artwork together created by all women. Viewers will read each artist’s voice through the various mediums. There will be a variety of languages presented and James is excited to see which ones speak the loudest, as it were. She says, “In these local shows excellent craftsmanship is always present; however, it is a great surprise when a specific voice pops out that makes you see new things, or old things, in a new way.”

For over seven years, artist Rachel Moore has pushed the delicacy of glass to create stunning wall sculptures, exhibiting nationally and in Puerto Rico. These are large-scale sculpture installations, hung on walls or from ceilings.

Arista Alanis has painted for 25 years working with traditional oil paints and canvas. Originally from Houston Texas, she moved to Vermont 10 years ago. She has exhibited nationally since 1989. Nature inspires her, and the series in this show was inspired from “walking the loop”. The loop is her daily ritual walk, a path that inspires her to create throughout the seasons.

Alanis is reluctant to dwell on the gendered-focus of the exhibit, but shares the following anecdote about perceptions and expectations. In a past show, an admirer of her work mused, “I thought a guy made that painting.” Alanis took this as a compliment, she said, as it is her desire for her work to be perceived as “powerful.” Yet she credits artists such as Joan Mitchell, Selina Trieff, and Lillian Orlowsky as her main inspiration.

In its West Gallery, HDAC will host the first of four exhibits recognizing the five Vermont women who were the 2004 finalists of the National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA) “From the States” program.

Patricia Burleson

Patricia Burleson of Townshend was chosen by the NMWA as the finalist to exhibit at the Washington DC-based museum in 2005. Making art for over thirty years, Burleson has been creating sculptural baskets and vessels created from found objects for the last fifteen years – such objects range from bottle caps or lace to chewed beaver sticks.

Painter Gail Salzman has been at work for thirty-five years creating rich abstract paintings inspired by landscapes – “the world, water, nature.” Curator LaPre’Grabon elaborates: Salzman’s work has “grown from a visceral connection between the environment and her inner landscape.” There is a strong sense of fluidity and gesture to her compositions and brush strokes.

Many people avoid the topics of aging and dying…. Artist Deidre Scherer embraces both through her portraits created out of fabric and thread. According to HDAC, Scherer works with area hospices, and draws and photographs individuals and family groups. From these images she layers fabric shapes, creates highlights and shadows of the portrait, then stitches the cloth layers together using colored threads.

Kathleen Schneider

While aspects of Kathleen Schneider’s works are said to reference the quintessential Hellenistic sculpture The Nike of Samothrace, other characteristics of her work are the exact opposite: intimate in scale, made of such low-tech materials as paper, wood, ceramic tile – and painted with intense color.

Claire Van Vliet has been creating “pulp paintings” for fifty years, exhibiting nationally since her first Brookland National in 1953. The process is roughly outlined such: pigments are mixed into the paper during the paper making process… the depth of color is similar to that of pastel creating a strong surface. Acrylics are applied like watercolor, until finally, as the artist describes it, “the glory of the paper is allowed to come through.”

Van Vliet feels that artists are not taken seriously in this culture – men or women. However, she says, women are more undervalued than men, even by other women. Women gallery owners promote more male artist because their work is buyer-preferred. On average, out of one thousand solo shows nine will be that of a woman artist.

In the 1950’s it was not uncommon for female artists to promote their work as “artist unknown.” Van Vliet calls it the Virginia Wolfe effect – it was what women had to do in order to sell their work. We are forever hearing, “We like her work but we can’t sell it.”

Van Vliet notes that there is a high demand by African American collectors for art by African Americans. Women need to do the same for women. She would like to see successful women collecting women’s work.

Mickey Myers, executive director of HDAC, explains the course of events that have led to Women's Work: No Boundaries. The work of three emerging artists had come to the attention of Myers and LaPre’Grabon. “Artists Alanis, James and Moore were related to each other by their youth, their daring, and their strong adventuresome explorations within their respective media.” Myers says HDAC was eager to give them a forum, even though this is not the kind of exhibition they usually offer.

Emerging at the same time were the finalists of the Vermont Committee of the National Museum of Women in the Arts. HDAC thought they could exhibit the emerging artists next to an assembly of work by women artists who were juried as the best in Vermont: the present and the future, side by side.

Myers says “Together, these artists make a bold statement about possibilities, about pushing the envelope of aesthetic dimension into a territory that is at once spiritual and familial and connected, independent and universal. Together, they create a dialogue across decades and mediums and life circumstances, to give witness to a highly developed concept of women's work. To call this exhibition women's work is the deepest compliment we could bestow on these artists who embody the spirit of adventure and ongoing growth in our midst.

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